There has been an explosion of media, not just in content but in formats. Media is now spread across a vast spectrum of incompatible hardware. Legal forms of acquiring media have grown into online markets allowing consumers to purchase media for a variety of devices. Each system used to purchase media has a specific persistent layer of hardware through which the particular media is accessed and enjoyed.
iTunes™ (online media supplier) for instance is made for the iPod™ (hardware). ITunes™ uses encryption to ensure that the iPod™ will be the only hardware that has access to play the desired media. Even though the consumer owns the media, the overhead to take iTunes™ purchased media and put it onto other devices besides an iPod™ is enormous but legal.
Furthermore, after consumers choose their preferred media suppliers, they are restricted to stay in the hardware domain that the content was purchased in. Downloading a movie online condemns the consumer, without additional hardware, to be stuck watching movies on the computer. To take the movie and watch it on a television involves a particular solution designed for connecting computer and television video. To then use a sound system for that movie requires a different solution specifically crafted for connecting computer audio output and a sound system.
Along with the diversification of media, there has also been increasing demand for affordable and reliable home automation systems. Home automation, in the grandest scheme, is a system that is able to communicate with all the electronic devices in the house and provide a common interface for all of the components of the system. There are systems that have been made custom for individual homes and there are systems with components a la carte that can be installed by the consumer. Both of these methods currently require either some technical background or the assistance of someone with a technical background.
There are a few key components that have recently become major sales points to consumers; power management and reporting, control of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, monitoring of security systems, and integrated telephony services. Unfortunately the cost of upgrading the existing systems is too great for the average consumer to consider. For instance in order to interface with the heating systems of a house a new furnace might need to be installed.
The two areas of Home Automation and Media Control have originally been separated by markets. Some companies choose to provide purely media solutions such as: a sling-box or a link station; while others have been in the sole business of home automation and smart devices like the company x10. There have been a few different strategies to create these systems. Some work with standards groups to create compatible devices. Others create a myriad of custom devices which only work with their custom system. Still others use existing communication protocols to integrate the different devices but then have separate control devices.
What separates this invention from similar systems in intent is the user interaction and the design which is required to accomplish this. The invention has no specific control devices, no specific source devices, and no specific output devices. The invention allows for existing devices to be utilized to their designed purposes with only the addition of signal conversion hardware and a few algorithms. To illustrate, if a user wished to view a movie stored on an iPod™ connected to the system, the user would use the television remote control to turn the television on. The user would then be presented with a menu with different available source devices which she would then browse using the same remote. Once the iPod™ is selected, a list of available movies and songs would be presented to the user. The iPod™ would then provide the proper video data after a selection is made and it would be displayed on the television. A key aspect to this process is that different control devices will result in different user interfaces. If the same process was performed on a computer, a different browsing style would be presented to optimize use with a mouse instead of a remote.